Computing
The Pocket Calculator
Introduction Some of you may know that the Doc has been ill after falling off of a ladder. A very bad accident and I was lucky not to break anything (other than my confidence at [more…]
Articles by Doc Mike Finnley
Engineering
Three Gyroscopes – Part 4
Introduction As a child I loved playing about with magnets – I still do. They can move heavy objects – such as lifting cars at a scrap yard. They can also move light (-weight!) objects [more…]
Going Postal
Cipher – A Tribute To OldTrout
Introduction Cipher – meaning zero (0), nothing or an empty set. Decipher – to make something out of that seemingly meaningless nothing. Caroline or ‘Old Trout’ (as we affectionately remember her) was a brilliant mathematician. [more…]
Engineering
Three Gyroscopes – Part 3
Introduction In part one we looked at how a gyroscope seems to defy gravity. This is accomplished by angular momentum. We’ll come back to that later 🙂 In part two we looked at how a [more…]
Hobbies
Mum’s Crochet Work
I’ve posted these images before, but for a bit of Christmas fun I’ve added some titles. Hope that you all have a very merry Christmas and a great new year. Cheers. © text & [more…]
Physics
Three Gyroscopes – Part 2
Introduction The “flat earth” people like to disseminate their woeful ideas. Therefore, let us spend some little time to think about the earth that we all live upon. In particular its spherical (well, almost) shape [more…]
Physics
Three Gyroscopes – Part 1
Introduction I woke up one morning thinking, “I’ll write a few articles for GP about the gyroscope. How hard can that be?”. Hmm… Well it turns out that that was a really stupid idea. Are [more…]
Computing
A Simple R6G Dye Laser – Part 3
If you’ve been following along (well done you!) then you might recall that we need a fast switch that works at a very high voltage for the laser’s pump lamp and, indeed, for the laser [more…]
Computing
A Simple R6G Dye Laser – Part 2
Lamp Light And Laser Light Pulsed lasers, like this, use an intense burst of white light (lasting fractions of a second) to stimulate the electrons in the laser’s gain medium. In the above photo you [more…]